Saturday, November 28, 2015

‘The Chain Bridge’ by Tom Davis involves a Hungarian family
in Melbourne in 2010 dealing with the truth about life in Hungary during the
Second World War and under Communist rule in the 1950s.The mother believes the past should stay
buried but the son wants to know what really happened.In pushing for the truth, horrors emerge through
flashbacks that test the relationships around him.

Imogen Keen has designed a spectacular set that uses the
entire stage space of The Street theatre.It looks exciting and imaginative but the setting often works against
the staging of the play.Many of these scenes
get lost in the vast playing space and there are sound problems, too, when the
cast are positioned at the back of the set.In addition, the size of the set dwarfs the actors, making this a less
involving experience than it should be.Gillian
Schwab’s lighting and Kimmo Vennonen’s startling sound effects work very well.

The play consists of many short scenes with the five actors
playing multiple roles but always in the same costumes.For example, the mother also plays herself as
a child and her daughter-in-law plays the child’s mother.Scenes often occur simultaneously with actors
swapping back and forth between characters.It’s an awkward device and confusing at times.

The actors do well, though.Geraldine Turner is impressive as the mother who doesn’t want the truth
to be heard.Zsuzsi Soboslay and PJ
Williams give strong performances as a Hungarian couple deeply involved with
the family and Kate Hosking and Peter Cook give very real performances as the
young couple.

Caroline Stacey’s work with the actors’ characterisations is
fine but at over two and a half hours the script needs severe cutting.There’s good writing in the 2010 dinner
sequences and the conflict of interest between the older generation of people
coming from the horrors of war and oppression and their children who want to
know what really happened is a great subject for a play.

Len Power’s reviews
can also be heard on Artsound FM’s ‘Artcetera’ program from 9am Saturdays.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol by Tom Mula.

Directed by Michelle Higgs. Presented
by Craig Alexander in association with The Street. Studio Two. The Street
Theatre. November 27 – 29 2015

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Every now and again one comes
across an ingenious, funny, poignant and original idea that makes one think,
“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Tom Mula’s taleof Jacob Marley’s quest to redeem the
apparently irredeemable Ebenezer Scrooge is such a work. Of course, we know
from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present
and Future are the agents of Scrooge’s redemption, but did we know that it was
Jacob Marley, who signed the contract to ensure his own redemption and escape
the ghoulish caverns of Hell. Such is the premise of Tom Mula’s engrossing
Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol.

Craig Al;exander as Jacob Marley in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Banished to an eternity in Hell,
the tortured, dead former business partner of Scrooge signs a contract to take
on the seemingly impossible task of changing the intractable Scrooge. He is
allotted only twenty four hours to achieve his goal and release the pendulous
chains that weigh him down with every link of his miserably penurious life. He
is accompanied on his mission by Bogle, a mischievous hell sprite with a sly
will to see Marley fail in his quest. In a stroke of cunning ingenuity, Marley
inhabits the familiar spirits that visit Scrooge, and lead him towards
enlightenment.

Mula has channelled the spirit of
Dickens to tell a story, colourful in its tapestry of characters, rich in its
vivid prose and thoroughly engaging in its dramatic construct. Mula is the
consummate storyteller, spinning his yarn with a thread that winds through the
fires of hell to the dome of St. Paul, the counting house of Scrooge and Marley
and the prophetic sites of the spirits. Marley’s foreboding intensity is
deliciously counterpoisedby Bogle’s
impish cat and mouse Puckish playfulness.
﻿﻿﻿﻿

Craig Alexander as Jacob Marley in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol poses
an actor’s Leviathan challenge. Craig Alexander and director Shelley Higgs have
chosen to perform the solo version of Mula’s play. Alexander is faced with the
daunting task of playing all characters, plummeting at times to the depths of
despair while navigating the treacherous course of his emotional rapids. In the
intimate confines of the Street Theatre’s Studio Two, Alexander’s performance
is electric, magnetic in its intensity, mercurial in its humour and relentless
in its forceful energy. Mula’s two act tour de force demands of an actor
exhausting versatility, vibrant imagination, physical endurance and keen
intelligence served by a vivid imagination. In Alexander, Mula’s demands are
fully realized in a performance that will have audiences captivated by an
outstanding stortyteller actor. There is at times the risk of a driving energy
that knows no respite, and only very occasionally does Alexander take pause to
let the effect linger. Marley’s account
of his own abusive father offers a moment of deeply moving sentiment but
bullroaring bluster can at times abuse the sensitivity of a moment. Reflection
can offer pause to contemplate. This small quibble notwithstanding, Alexander
offers a performance not to be missed.

Quite remarkable in this
production is the use of light as a leitmotif in Marley’s search for salvation
of his own soul and the redemption of Scrooge’s miserly, inhumane past.
Suitcases hide moments of illuminating magic, while candles flicker and fade at
will to reveal moments of awareness or the dark and frightening abyss of human
failing. Alexander operates the lights as an integral part of the action in a
setting of suitcases, ladder and lights designed to create an eminently
tourable show.

Craid Alexander as The Bogle in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Audiences should be aware that
this production offers a darker insight into Dicken’s immortal Christmas tale,
but Mula has interwoven the spellbinding appeal of Dicken’s story into his
original and clever conceit. We should all be comforted by the fact that
Marley, too, though seven years dead, may also be afforded redemption, as may
we all if only we too may listen to the spirits, ignore the sprites and deserve
the words of Tiny Tim “God Bless Us, Everyone.” Yes, Tom Mula’s play also has a
moral, but then what is a good fable without a good moral, and Jacob Marley’s
Christmas Carol is a jolly good fable.

Friday, November 27, 2015

As performed
in this production, Tom Mula’s award winning play
recounting the Dickens Scrooge story from the point of view of Marley’s ghost seemed
to have lost something in translation and failed to engage on opening night.

The concept for this production was as a “show in a suitcase”, with the premise being that
everything used, including lights, sound and set pieces could all fit in a
suitcase and be easily set up in a variety of performance spaces.

Craig Alexander in "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol"

The
performance began promisingly with the audience entering the theatre to
discover actor, Craig Alexander, casually arranging and adjusting props in a
circular area marked out on the floor by candles, stacked suitcases, a ladder
and some theatre lights.

Nothing
about the setting, or Alexander’s costume, suggested Dickens, but theatrical
magic had been promised, so this added to the anticipation.

As the
audience settled in their seats, Alexander engaged some in conversation,
setting up a casual atmosphere. When all were settled he gently segued into his
story, switching out the auditorium lights to let his special lighting take
over.

Adopting a
variety of voices and accents to differentiate characters, Alexander incorporated
small torches and other props into the performance. Unfortunately these props
were not sufficiently well handled to provide the expected magic or create
atmosphere.

As the show
progressed, it became increasingly clear that managing the lighting and props was distracting Alexander from his performance which soon lapsed into coarse acting
with rushed, shouted lines, wildly varying accents, and undisciplined movement with little of the finesse and polish necessary to make a one-man show memorable.

Therefore, experiencing difficulty engaging with any of the characters, the story, or indeed,
the production, which surprisingly captured little of the expected Dickensonian
period or sensibility, this reviewer took advantage of the interval to escape.

With the theme of 'Dance, Sing, Love, Live!', you would
expect a program of great variety and that's just what Canberra soprano, Louise
Page, gave us in Artsong Canberra's latest Sunday afternoon concert.

Ranging from Canteloube to Delibes, Mahler, Berlioz and
others, the chosen songs gave Louise Page every opportunity to show the full
range and colour of her voice.

Whether singing joyously or with strong emotion, Louise Page
gives full weight to the intent of a song as well as singing every note with
great clarity and precision. The intense
emotion of the opening number, ‘Song Of Happiness’ by Berlioz was perfectly
captured and the well-known ‘Bolero’ from ‘Songs Of the Auvergne’ was sung with
great feeling.By contrast, Delibes’
‘The Girls Of Cadiz’ was delightfully humorous.The rapture displayed at the end of the Strauss song 'Secret Invitation'
was especially moving as was her singing of a second highly emotional Strauss
song, ‘A Dedication’.The highlight of
the concert was the presentation of songs by Australia’s Calvin Bowman,
especially her delicate singing of the haunting, ‘Words By The Water’.

For an encore, Louise Page delighted us with a flirtatious
and sexy ‘My Kisses Are So Hot’ (with real kisses for some lucky audience
members) from Franz Lehar’s ‘Giuditta’.

The accompaniment on piano by Phillipa Candy was excellent
and there was sublime additional accompaniment by Caitlin McAnulty on oboe and
Rachel Best-Allen on clarinet in the selections from ' Songs of the Auvergne'.

Once again Artsong Canberra provided a perfect afternoon's musical
entertainment.

This review was first published in Canberra City News Digital Edition 23 November 2015.

Len Power’s reviews
can also be heard on Artsound FM’s ‘Artcetera’ program from 9am Saturdays.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

“Hot to Trot”
is an annual showcase of new works created by Quantum Leap dancers, for which selected
dancers with choreographic ambitions are each provided with the facilities and
support necessary to create and produce a contemporary dance work which is then
given two performances before a paying audience. The choreographers must choose
and train their dancers, source costumes and music, consider lighting design,
write program notes and schedule their rehearsals so that their work is
delivered on time. After each
performance opportunity is provided for audience members to comment and
question the choreographers and dancers about the works presented.

Although a
polished product is expected, and the choreographic choices and execution is
limited by the ability and experience of the young participants, it’s the
process that is important, and the results are often startling in their
originality and sophistication.

This year
the choreographers were inspired by some unlikely topics like atomic forces, fractals,
meditation and the refraction of light. How well their works realised these
inspirations provided a fascinating program of 10 original dance works.

Among the
more successful was a delightful duet called “Ember” danced by the creators,
Ruby Ballantyne and Milly Vanzwol, which attempted to explore in dance
terms, the different ways light refracts,
reflects and absorbs.

An
eye-catching dancer, Ballantyne appeared again with Caspar Ilschner and Nasim
Patel, in a cheerful little piece by Jason Pearce called “What are You Waiting
For” which explored how people move and react while waiting, and in perhaps the
most original work of the evening, “9.81 metres per second” choreographed by
Ilschner and Jack Clements inspired by contrasting aspects of gravity.

Ursula
Taylor composed her own soundscape to accompany her work “Feeding line” for
which she used a large wooden cube to explore the interactions of individuals.
Walter Wolffs incorporated ropes, plastic toys and silver balls for his playful
piece, “Snowflakes” which focussed on the mathematical phenomenon of fractals.

Abstract projections featured in Caroline De Wan’s interesting piece,
“Something That’s Not” exploring altered states of consciousness, a topic also
explored by Ayla Scholtz with her cleverly fragmented work “Mind over Matter”.

Elyse
Lenehan tackled self- image for her work for three dancers, “The Norm?”, while
Nasim Patel rounded out the program with his ambitious work “Recess” for which
he worked with six dancers to create a playful work focussed on memories of
childhood.

Lighting, costume
and music choices for each of the works were intelligent and appropriate, and
given the limited time available to each choreographer to prepare and rehearse
their piece, the standard reached in the execution of the works was impressive.

This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 23.11.15

Review by John LombardScript by Tom Davis. Directed by Caroline Stacey.

Few people in real life host dinner parties so they confront their guests with accusations - at the very least, it is extremely bad manners. Even so, historian Imre (Peter Cook) and his wife Sarah (Kate Hosking) do just this with Imre's mother Eva (Geraldine Turner) and her close friends Jozef and Katalin (PJ Williams and Zsuszi Soboslay), inviting the three survivors of World War 2 Hungary over for bad soup and a vicious interrogation on just how they survived not only the Nazis but the Communists.

An even half-alert audience member is aware that if Eva and her friends don't talk about their experiences in these harrowing "bloodlands", it is probably because the truth is too brutal and horrible and degrading to reveal over bad fish soup. Nonetheless, Imre is a zealot, hounding his mother with the rigour of a prosecuting attorney, pouncing ferociously whenever her story does not quite match the few surviving documentary records.

The script works hard to give Imre a lot of motivation to coax the truth from his mother. First, he is a struggling academic, and the book he is writing about her experiences could make his reputation and career. Second (and more implausibly) he and his wife have been engaged in a longstanding debate over the nature of truth, and his mother telling all just might save their slightly frayed marriage. On a more deep level, Imre's mother was a "bad" one and he is struggling to save his own life by finding out what traumas stripped her of her ability to give him love.

Eva is a fabulist, filching scraps of other people's stories and inventing a heroic past for her family to replace the tawdry and dismal one they left behind. She is also worn out, reduced to the role of carping mother-in-law who joylessly criticises husband and wife for their many inadequacies. A tantalising glimpse of her years before, early in Imre's romance with Sarah, reveals a much softer woman, suggesting that her souring may be shockingly recent - perhaps she has wilted because of her son's blooming hatred.

In the end, the truth about Eva comes out, and we also learn that Imre was keeping secrets of his own. Importantly, we only have one brief glimpse of Imre's childhood: we never have enough evidence to say whether Eva really was a bad mother, although we can understand how her experiences might have stripped her of her ability to love. There is a mystery at the heart of the script, and the final scenes makes us question whether the events we saw really happened. Did Eva tell the truth? Did this night of confrontation and revelation really happen?

The play is fascinated with how people experience horrors but somehow are able to find the strength to endure them and even thrive. Elderly couple Katalin and Jozef are in the throes of lifelong romance, still singing and dancing and loving each other with fervour into old age. They have secrets of their own, but somehow they have not been swallowed by them. P. J. Williams and Zsuzsi Sobolay are delightful as this joyful couple - and form a vivid contrast with the bitter Eva - but the script is humane enough to show us that Eva's heartlessness is not entirely her own fault.

Finally the characters reach a mutual conclusion: "fuck history". However that is not the response the audience is likely to have, because the more the truth is revealed the more we connect with the characters. This is close to Imre's initial thesis that what is important in history is empathy and understanding - a thesis that is, strangely enough, the opposite of his actual actions during the play.

The recurring symbol of the fish soup is closer to the play's message: Imre meticulously dictate the recipe followed by his mother, but somehow the soup always comes out bad. Only when Imre and Katalin take over and add what's not written down does it come out right. What's written down may be rigorously true, but we are wise to be alert to silences as well.

Even if Imre is destined to go on making bad soup, this play has all the right ingredients - a stunning cast, a strong script and excellent staging create a powerful, thought-provoking experience.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Canadian director Walter Learning
returns to Canberra to direct Canberra Rep’s final production for 2015. In
keeping with an enviable and popular tradition of ending the year’s programme
with a comedy, audiences are treated to Marc Camoletti’s French farce, Don’t Dress For Dinner, guaranteed to make
the belly shake with laughter and set your mind spinning through a tangled web
of deception, misconception, bumbling evasion and back-peddling explanation.
Learning’s tightly directed and expertly timed production ensures an evening of
hilarity and mirth with careful observation of the essential elements of farce:
quicksilver timing, buffoonery and clowning, slapstick and physical
exaggeration. Rep’s production has all this and more. The improbable becomes
probable, the lie becomes the truth and none is whom they seem until it all
becomes unravelled and the audience is led down another path of absurd
probabilities.

Michelle Cooper as Suzanne. Robert De Fries as Robert.
Natalie Waldron as Suzette in Don't Dress For Dinner

Good farce is defined by its plot
and situation. Bernard (Peter Holland) has arranged for his mistress Suzanne
(Michelle Cooper) to visit while his wife Jacqueline (Monique Dyson) is at her
mother’s. Jacqueline learns that their Best Man, Robert, is also coming, and
feigns illness to continue her secret affair with Robert (Robert de Fries).
Suzette (Natalie Waldron) arrives from the Bon Appetit Agency to cook a birthday
meal for Suzanne and Bernard. Bernard convinces her to pretend to be Robert’s
mistress. Suzanne arrives and is talked into playing the role of the cook. And
the rest is farcical mayhem and madness as characters weasel and worm their way
through a maze of twists and turns in which they change identities and stories.
Robin Hawdon’s adaptation of Camoletti’s ingeniously convoluted sequence of
events remains true to the fierce pace and absurdity of the farce, challenging
an audience to keep up with the sudden shifts in the plot.

Robert De Fries and Natalie Waldron in Don't Dress For Dinner

Learning has assembled a strong
cast for Don’t Dress For Dinner. He
is particularly fortunate to have two of Rep’s comic stalwarts in the roles of
Bernard and Robert. Holland and De Fries bounce off each other with split
second timing. From droll to demonic; from triumph to terror, these two masters
of the double take and comical timing lend the production a turbine thrust
forward. Camoletti’s female characters are less well developed and the three
female actors make the most of their roles, which do little more than serve the
action, driven largely by Holland’s Basil Faulty -like Bernard. Waldron in the
role of the coquettish, opportunistic Suzette is someone to watch out for in
the future, and there is a strong cameo performance from Daniel McCusker as
Suzette’s bewildered husband, George.

Robert De Fries and Peter Holland in Don't Dress For Dinner

Don’t Dress for Dinner is what a Rep audience could expect from
Canberra’s longest running, well established and highly respected repertory
company. The production values, evidenced in Andrew Kay’s professionally
created renovated barn setting, are high. Performances are engaging and the
production in the hands of a professional director ensures the success of the
farce. Rep has hit on a perfect precursor to the Festive Season and if laughter
is the best medicine, then Don’t Dress
For Dinner is the ideal remedy for the furrowed frown.

An edited version of this review was published in The Canberra Times on November 24th. 2015

Monday, November 23, 2015

THE 2015 Citynews Artist of the Year award has gone
to dance artist Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, it was announced at the 25th ACT Arts
Awards ceremony on Monday November 23 at the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, photoby Barbie Robinson

Ms. Dalman, who is currently teaching at an arts
university in Taiwan, could not attend the ceremony, but her son, Andreas
Dalman, spoke on her behalf and accepted a cheque to the value of $1,000,
together with a fine porcelain bowl from the “After the Fire” series by
Canberra ceramic artist Avi Amesbury.

A daring choreographer and pioneer of modern dance
in this country, Ms. Dalman was described by one member of the Canberra
Critics’ Circle judging panel as “the doyenne of Australian dance.” At 81 she
is fully engaged in dancing and creating new works, often collaborating with Aboriginal and
Taiwanese dance artists.

Circle members
unanimously supported the nomination of such an exemplary artist.

Founder in 1965 of the Australian Dance Theatre in
Adelaide, Ms. Dalman made her home in the Canberra region 26 years ago, setting
up an arts centre and the Mirramu Dance Company at her property on the shores
of Lake George while also founding “Weereewa – a Festival of Lake George”.

Speaking by phone from Taipei, she said the news
gave her pangs of home sickness,” adding, “I have always felt proud to be a
part of Canberra's artistic and cultural community.”

The ACT Arts Awards evening, hosted by the Canberra
Critics’ Circle, also featured the Circle’s own arts awards.

Among the more unusual awards was one to filmmakers Declan Shrubb,
Christian Doran and Daniel Sanguineti, for their feature, Me and My Mates Vs the Zombie Apocalypse, which has achieved more
than 30 screenings nationwide.

For her exhibition Table Tools at Craft ACT:
Craft and Design Centre in September this year. The vessels, spoons, scoops,
whisks are fully resolved, bringing the artist’s concept to fruition. The
paring back of form and decoration creates simplicity of form. In particular,
‘ten bowls for ten days’ were outstanding.

Alison Jackson

Visual art

For her exhibition Unfold/ Construct at Bilk
Gallery in February this year. An exhibition of beautifully crafted and
constructed jewellery that was sculptural in concept playing with shape,
texture and colour in a sophisticated way showing contemporary jewellery that
has integrity as art and is eminently wearable.

Phoebe Porter

Visual art

For his exhibition Canopy at the Australian
National Botanic Gardens in July that was based on the artist’s engagement with
the Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve and for his continuing contribution to the
visual arts in Canberra through his exploration of all aspects of printmaking
as well as his mentoring of aspiring artists.

John Pratt

Visual art

For her singular and sophisticated
investigation of the aesthetics, production, dissemination and consumption of
print-media, culminating in the innovative and visually outstanding exhibition
Death of a Broadsheet at Megalo Print Studio and Gallery, in May 2015.

Alison Alder

Visual art

For his dedicated and innovative efforts to
foster experimental and multi-art practice in Canberra across a range of public
platforms, including the collaborative arts events, Playful Sound at Gorman
Arts Centre.

Danny Wild

Film

For his mystery documentary Maratus, an
excellently-made film concerning the Peacock Spider (Maratus Volans), a garbage
collector and a journey of self-discovery for a colourful citizen-scientist.

Simon Cunich

Film

For the feature film Me and My Mates Vs the
Zombie Apocalypse. Written and directed by Declan Shrubb, the film saw the use
of a new and untested distribution platform, tugg.com, which crowd-sourced
audiences and booked venues. This creative entrepreneurial team achieved more
than 30 screenings around the country, including in every capital, for its very
funny, quality film.

Declan Shrubb, Christian Doran and Daniel
Sanguineti

Poetry

For his spellbinding performance of his own
brand of urban haiku for Poetry at the Gods in September 2015. Bullock, a
master of this elusive poetry form, has also been noted for his poems on
environmental, health and current affairs issues, published on Crikey's online
health blog.

Owen Bullock

Fiction

For The Anchoress, a compelling and haunting
debut novel set in mediaeval England depictinga 17 year-old-girl who renounces the world.

Robyn Cadwallader

Fiction

For Goodbye Sweetheart, a powerful novel of
love, loss, betrayal and the desire for understanding. Halligan’s superb
writing about grief is clear-eyed yet compassionate.

Marion Halligan

Illustrated Fiction

For Crow Mellow, Julian Davies’
reinterpretation of Aldous Huxley’s satire Crome Yellow, in which the
characters, illustrated by Phil Day, are transplanted into contemporary
Australia.

Julian Davies & Phil Day

Music

For stepping into Canberra Choral Society's
2015 performance of Handel's 'Hercules' at very short notice to perform the
virtuosic lead role of Lichas, performing it from memory and demonstrating a
fine understanding of Handel’s baroque-period music and harmonic language.

Katie Cole

Music

For its concert, This American Life in Wesley
Uniting Church and for its tour de force performance of the 1742 version of
Handel’s Messiah in St Paul’s Church Manuka, both performances signalling it
will not take the easy way out.

Coro Chamber Music

Music

For his original songs of ‘self-renewal’, often
drawn from life in Canberra and Queanbeyan, evident in two LPs and one EP
released in 2015 and featured in this singer-songwriter and guitar whiz kid’s
August tour to Tokyo.

Tom Woodward

Music

For her outstanding CD recording, Aubade and
Nocturne, released in 2015, amazingly beautiful in every respect, providing a
wonderful retrospective of her recent works and featuring many of Canberra’s
finest professional musicians.

Sally Greenaway

Musical Theatre

For his insightful portrayal of the character
Albin in the musical La Cage Aux Folles for Supa Productions.

Ben O’Reilly (SUPA PRODUCTIONS’ GARRICK SMITH
TO PICK UP)

Musical Theatre

for his outstanding performance as Dick in the
musical High Fidelity for Phoenix Players.

Will Huang (HWANG)

Musical Theatre

For her outstanding performance as both the
Bird woman and Miss Andrew in the Free Rain production of the musical Mary
Poppins.

Bronwyn Sullivan

Musical Theatre

For her superbly realised choreography for Free
Rain Theatre’s production of the musical Mary Poppins.

Jacquelyn Richards

Musical Theatre

For outstanding technical achievement in
lighting and sound for the arena production of the musical Jesus Christ
Superstar for Peewee Productions.

Chris Neal

Dance

For
Walking and Falling at the National Portrait Gallery in conjunction with All
That Fall— the
Gallery’s contribution to the Anzac Centenary. With a
small cast of three, this was impeccably performed, delivered huge emotional
impact to audiences, made excellent use of a small range of props to suggest a
range of situations and was choreographed to suit perfectly the confined space
of the gallery’s foyer.

Ruth Osborne

Dance

For her works Fortuity and L, with which she
celebrated her 50th Anniversary as a trail blazer in the field of contemporary
dance. Containing many of her signature pieces from her early career, along
with recently choreographed works for her Mirramu Dance Company, these formed
an important retrospective of Dalman’s contribution to Australian contemporary
dance.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

Theatre

For the impact and excellence of his play
Scandalous Boy, which tackled the story of Emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous
in a way that communicated it clearly to a modern audience while maintaining a
sense of the past.

To David Atfield

Theatre

For the excellence and impact of her portrayal
of Violet Weston in Free Rain Theatre’s August – Osage County.

To Karen Vickery

Theatre

For her restrained and elegant direction of
Tuesdays with Morrie.

To Liz Bradley

Theatre

For his original, excellent and creative set
for Canberra Repertory’s The Crucible.

To Michael Sparks

Theatre

For her role as producer/director/dramaturg, with co-creator Louise
Morris; for the conception, originality and execution of Anthology, a
site-specific piece of theatre that brought the people and history of the
lost Canberra suburb of Westlake to life.

About Me

The 26 year-old Canberra Critics’ Circle is the only such group of critics in Australia that runs across all the major art forms, not just performing arts.
The circle changes each year depending on who is writing or broadcasting on the arts in Canberra.
Our aim is to provide a focal point for Canberra reviewers in print and electronic media through discussions and forums. As well, we make awards to ACT region artists (defined as within 100km radius of Canberra) in the latter part of each year.
The CCC has always resisted making awards in “best-of” categories. Arts practice is not a competitive race and Canberra is a small pool where it would be ridiculous to pre-impose categories, apart from major art form genres. The idea is that we, the critics, single out qualities we have noticed -- things which have struck us as important. These could be expressed as abstracts, like impact, originality, creativity, craftsmanship and excellence.
Our year is from September 30 2016 to September 30 2017.
Convener of the Circle is Helen Musa.